family room remodel

When we first bought our house, we bought it because we wanted a fixer upper so that we could fix it up and sell it for much more then we paid.  We knew it would take a few years to get it ready to sell, and we had a plan on staying the house for 5 years.  We have done a lot in the last 2 years, to the point that we don't really have any more big projects left.  Just a  lot of little things to work on now.  Anyways, our last REALLY big project was to remodel the family room.  We live in a tri-level, but really we have four levels because we have a basement too.  So our family room is in the lower level, but not the lowest level, if that makes sense.  Anyways, the house was built in the 80s and so that means popcorn ceilings and wood paneling.  EW!  And they had put new carpeting throughout the whole house to help sell it, but it was definitely the cheapest carpet they could find.  We have lots of animals, and as far as I'm concerned, animals and carpeting just don't mix.  I wrote about the start of the project here.  So here is the rest!

 We installed 3 new windows throughout the room, so they are MUCH more efficient than what we had.  The old windows would actually ice over in the winter, and let in tons of cold air.  It's much warmer down there now.

Then my handsome husband hung the drywall himself.  He didn't want to do the taping or mudding so we had to hire someone.  We had a heck of time trying to get someone in to do the work.  We finally posted an ad on Craiglist, had 3 guys come over to look at it, and picked the least expensive but least scary.  Haha.  Some of those guys on Craigslist are creepy!

 Even though the guy was the cheapest, he did a great job, and got it all done in 3 days.  Then we got to sealing, texturing, and painting.  That took us 2 nights, and I actually helped with some of it.  I HATE painting, with a passion.  But because we didn't have to be super careful, it made the job a little more tolerable.

This is after all the texture was done.  Already looking like a normal room.

I picked a bluish gray color for the walls.  The bathroom that is attached has a lighter blue grayish color, so they kind of match.  Plus, thanks to Pinterest, I had to have gray walls.  haha.

Over the next 2 days, Mark installed the flooring.  Really brought the whole room together.  Most exciting part about that was then we could actually move all the furniture back into the room, and use it as another part of our house again.  This project took much longer then I would have liked, about a month and a half.

It's obviously not completely done at this point.  There is still some touch ups that are needed, and the molding still needs to go up, but I can live with that for awhile, so long as we can use the room again.  I'm just so happy to not have plastic hanging in all the doorways, and I can easily access the basement again to do laundry, and there isn't dust everywhere all the time now!  YAY!